Ghost Factory

Avi loved communism. He loved it so much he couldn’t sleep most nights. He loved it so much he ate butter, milk, bread and eggs, and that’s it. He did not eat vegetables, really. He hated imports. He hated profiteering corporate farms and pesticides. Avi hated the poverty of those who picked beans, peaches, cotton. He wore only the clothes he’d had before he’d read the manifesto and refused gifts from those not of his ilk. No one was of Avi’s ilk though, so he never accepted any gifts.

Sometimes Avi’s parents thought he was crazy. He’d sit at dinner slurping dry noodles (he considered them bread) and muttering to himself every time someone asked to pass the overcooked broccoli or the prepackaged, mixed- green salad.

His mother, from time to time, held a secret smile for her son and his determination.

“What are we going to do about this, Jill?” his father said to his mother one evening, after a particularly grunt- filled dinner.

“What do you mean?”

“We can’t let it go on this way, he can’t live like this.”

Jill looked up at her husband, one red eyebrow tilted just slightly in towards the soft bridge of her nose. “Mark, he’s 17. He isn’t going to live like this.”

Mark had actually meant, “I can’t live like this,”—his sheepish acquiescence to corporate stooge-hood in constant jeopardy of being uncovered. He could not live with the chance that his son might come to some conclusions and turn against him, blacklist him. That was what he feared, being brought to trial by this inverse McCarthy.

Avi’d been unable to break himself of coffee. He knew it was a luxury, something he could easily do without. He saw it as a betrayal, a weakness of character that was nearly unforgivable. Were it rationed, the way it should be, the way everything should be, his self-control would not play a part.

Besides, the coffee houses were where the intellectuals were, and his passion had stemmed from a purely intellectual pursuit.

“You haven’t read Marx?” she’d said.

Perhaps not purely intellectual.

Her cold and arching eyebrows and bare, brown shoulders had had a lot to do with it, as well. Everyday he went to the coffee shop after school. She was not a regular, per say, but a girl who was around sometimes, so he went everyday to make sure they’d be there at the same time.

He’d only just alienated most of his friends, so it must have been a month or two after he’d finished the book. And she hadn’t been there yet.

“You still carrying that book around?” the barista asked as Avi laid it on the counter to pull the money from his wallet.

Avi looked up at him and shrugged. He was startled by the man’s affable tone. He was not a friendly man, or maybe he was only friendly to his myriad of artiste friends and lovers.

“You missed her yesterday.”

“What?”

“She came in after you left.”

“What? Who?”

Avi’s neck turned red, he could feel himself sweating.

“Corrine, that pinko girl.”

Avi could only blink, mutter something about how he wasn’t looking for anybody and shuffle towards one of the small back tables—spilling hot coffee across his knuckles in the process.

It was at that moment that she, Corrine, entered the coffee shop. Avi approached her.

“I read it,” he said as he slid the small red book on to her table, standing a bit behind her and a bit to the left. She closed the book she was reading. A picture of a large Mexican with a cigar squinted up at him from the cover. The cigar man was someone Avi did not recognize.

“Yeah?” She flipped a coil of hair over her brown shoulder. “What did you think?”

“I’ve stopped consuming.”

Those cold eyebrows lifted.

“Really?”

Avi nodded.

“I eat butter, milk, bread and eggs, and that’s it. You know, to get by. No vegetables, really; no imports, no profiteering corporate farms or pesticides.”

“I want to take you somewhere,” she said. Avi got a little hard.

“Yeah? Where?”

“There’s this book store. It’s just a couple of blocks away. If you’re into this stuff you’ll love it. I love it.”

Avi opened his mouth—almost imperceptibly, because it felt as if he couldn’t get as much oxygen to his brain as he need breathing through his nose. She slid her thin, uncovered arms into the small denim jacket she had been carrying.

Avi stood behind her, looking stupid with his mouth slightly open, a cup of black coffee in one burnt-knuckled hand, and the Communist Manifesto in the other. She got up, knocking into him lightly.

“Come on,” she said, scooting him along with a flick of her fingers. “It’ll be cool, I promise.”

Avi followed the nape of her neck, where the knot of her bandana lay, out of the café. He followed the swing of her hips, and the back and forth splash of her long brown skirt, down the block of short, close together buildings. She walked confidently, pert nose tilted up, delicate hands swinging lazily by her sides. Several times she slowed down a step or two and beckoned him again with the tips of her fingers.

“We’re almost there. I swear. Hurry!” she said, grabbing his hand. Avi nearly fainted. But he held himself together the way people do in a disaster. Panicking now will not help, his brain told itself, keep it together or they’ll topple the wall all over again.

The book store was on the corner of two streets Avi had never been to before. It had a large, red hammer and sickle painted crudely on the black door. It looked more like the door to a den of sin than a haven for the seekers of enlightenment.

Avi felt queasy. What was going to happen after this? When should he ask for her phone number? Corrine, Corrine, Corrine. He was so glad the barista had mentioned her name, he wouldn’t have known it otherwise, and it’s not like he could ask now. He’d have to leave that guy an awesome tip the next time he went in.

Maybe Corrine would be his girlfriend by then.

“Jeez, come on,” Corrine said, dragging Avi into the book store.

“Hi,” an older woman said to them from behind the counter. She had long, ropey dreadlocks braided into pigtails. She wore a floor length batik dress that billowed around her thin and wrinkled arms. Avi wondered to himself why anyone would ever want their clothes to billow.

Avi half-smiled, then looked around the small, haphazardly organized store. Behind the counter was a massive, vinyl banner with the same sickle and hammer that was painted on the door. Just to the left of the banner were rows and rows of t-shirts neatly folded and pinned to the wall—displaying images of Mao, Lenin, Stalin; Soviet and Chinese flags; posters screen printed with size options listed below. There was a thin boy in tightly stitched clothes perched on a stool behind the glass case counter. He smiled at Avi then turned back to the older woman.

“Did you see Lacy at the bar on Saturday?” he asked.

The older woman nodded and rolled her eyes. “I wish she’d stop bringing that fucking suit around with her all the time. I mean he’s nice or whatever but come on! Did you see what he was wearing?”

“I know,” the boy nodded back, tucking a hand under his chin and drumming his fingers against his cheek, “I think he’s getting to her too.”

Avi peered at the opposite end of the case. He saw stacks of embroidered patches for $4, rows of lighters for $6, hair dye, nail polish, cell phone cases, money clips.

“Did you hear what she said to me?” the boy asked the older woman.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“She wanted to know how much apartments were in Hickory Lake. Hickory Lake. That’s where my dad lives!”

“Gross, she’s turning into such a slime.”

Something fell in Avi’s chest, he couldn’t tell if it was his heart or his stomach or something all together different, but again he had to part his lips to get enough oxygen into his blood.

“Hey,” he heard Corrine call, “come here.”

He walked slowly towards her, passed shelves backed with shot glasses painted with fists reaching towards the sky and others decorated with the upturned faces of the unified workers.

“What’s your name, anyway?”

“Avi,” he said.

“I’m Corrine.”

He smiled with the corner of his mouth, his insides more and more confused by the minute.

“Check this out. I’ve been waiting for them to get this in for months. They’ve got it on the website, but they haven’t had it in the store.”

She held out a long, flat box, wrapped in plastic with tall red letters printed across the top: “RISK the Communist Takeover Special Edition.”

“Isn’t it awesome?”

Avi stared at the board game for a moment in silence—pulling a few pulling breaths through his mouth. He held up his hand to her, as if to say stop, looked at the floor.

“Um, one second,” he huffed. Then he turned and headed quickly for the door, nearly tripping over a life-size, cardboard cut-out of Fidel Castro—head thrown back in a brutal laugh, cigar clinched tightly between his fingers.

“Watch it buddy!” the boy behind the counter said loudly. “It took me, like, twenty minutes to put that thing together.”

Avi flung the door open and staggered to the corner of the building. In the solace of the shadowy alley he doubled over and heaved a good part of his small school supplied lunch onto the pavement. One hand on the wall, the other holding tightly to his cheek to keep him from crying, he vomited again.

Disgusting, he thought, this world is disgusting.

************